'Affordable college' a phrase being consigned to the past

Within a decade, the average college graduate may owe more in student loans than he or she will make in an average year. That trend can be reversed, but only if there is action on several fronts.

The problem is that college costs are rising and incomes are stagnant. "College tuition and fees have increased more than 200 percent since 1974. Wages have been growing much slower. Indeed, in the last decade college graduates' incomes have declined by five percent," according to a study quoted in Washington Monthly.

The study notes that a college education still is a good idea because college graduates make a lot more money than other people. Nevertheless, the debt burden is a growing problem.

Costs at public universities have been rising sharply due to decreased state support. "By 2012, most public universities got less than a third of percent of their support from the public. In some states, the figure was less than 15 percent. The burden of tuition was shifted to students," Robert Kuttner wrote in Huffington Post.

In North Carolina, state universities get less than 20 percent of their income from the state, and their budgets have been cut by more than $231 million during the last five years. As a result, tuition and fees are rising. The Board of Governors adopted an increase ceiling of 6.5 percent for the 2013-14 school year, except in special circumstances.

At UNC Asheville, tuition for in-state undergraduates will rise 5.5 percent to $3,666. At Western Carolina University the increase will be 8 percent, to $3,669, and at Appalachian State it will be 6.5 percent, to $3,772. WCU's increase was allowed as part of its "catch-up" program to bring its costs in line with those of similar institutions.

Complicating the picture is a loan system that encourages overborrowing, according to Kuttner. Before 2010 the loans were made by private lenders with government guarantees, giving the lenders every incentive to push for maximum indebtedness.

Since 2010 the system has used direct government loans. "But," Kuttner says, "these loans are administered by the same private lending companies such as Sallie Mae, which try to persuade students to opt for higher-priced private loans."

Under a pilot system in Oregon, a state resident could attend a public university or community college tuition free. The student would pay the state a percentage of income over a 24-year period, 3 percent for a four-year university, 1.5 percent for a community college.

We doubt that North Carolina, which seems intent on crippling its university system, is ready for such a step. But the General Assembly could at least stop shifting the cost of higher education from the state to the students.

"Carolina is still a great bargain for the quality of the education students receive," says UNC Chapel Hill. That is especially true at UNC Asheville, which is cited repeatedly as one of the best bargains in liberal-arts education. Both UNC Asheville and UNC Chapel Hill are listed as "best buys" in the 2014 Fiske Guide to Colleges.

But the situation for students is getting more difficult by the year. "Some folks are economically strapped, and I don't know how some of them are able to do what they do in order to get here," said Ed Broadwell, a trustee of Western Carolina University, after the board set next year's costs.

The federal government could help by taking over administration of the student-loan program to keep students from being pressured into too much debt. But there still will be a lot of debt as long as states in general and North Carolina in particular keep chopping university budgets.

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'Affordable college' a phrase being consigned to the past

Within a decade, the average college graduate may owe more in student loans than he or she will make in an average year. That trend can be reversed, but only if there is action on several fronts.